AMD FX-8370E CPU Review: Vishera Down to 95W, Price Cuts for FX
by Ian Cutress on September 2, 2014 8:00 AM ESTAMD FX-8370E Conclusion
Since the bygone days of the GHz wars, energy efficiency is now a key part in any x86 CPU manufacturer handbook. When designing a CPU, parts can be engineered to either be all-out guns blazing on performance, or it can strike a balance between performance and power. When AMD first announced the FX-9590, it was presumed that the Vishera architecture was the former, given the large power increase to get to 5 GHz with turbo. That same principle comes across in these new energy efficient processors, especially when the FX-8370E is 700 MHz less than the FX-8370 it tries to emulate for a 30W decrease.
Trying to have an energy efficient part of an architecture that loves high frequency at the expense of power is an odd scenario, one borne from the initial production of motherboards that supported these processors. When there were only 95W and 125W CPUs to worry about, motherboards were made to only cope with this setting, until 220W CPUs hit the ecosystem. These 95W parts allow AMD to offer an upgrade path to an 8-thread machine without replacing the motherboard. The fact that AMD is going this far might suggest they have some strong data that a user would more likely replace a CPU than a motherboard. Admittedly replacing a CPU usually requires a BIOS update or less, whereas upgrading a motherboard is a bigger ordeal.
In terms of absolute performance, the FX-8370E sits somewhere between the FX-6350, FX-8150 and FX-8350. The multi-core performance puts it ahead of the FX-6350 CPU, but the single core performance can juggle around with all three, sometimes between the FX-8150 and FX-8350 due to the generational gap but often on par with the FX-8150. The same goes with gaming, where it competed with the FX-8150 near the bottom of our charts. The new FX-8370, the non-E part, should come out a clear winner over the FX-8350, so it stands to reason that the FX-8370E sits below them both due to the base frequency difference.
For competition against Intel, the nearest sets of numbers we have are the i3-4330, i3-4360 and the i5-4690, positioned well below and above the price point respectively. Intel wins hands down on the single threaded performance, even against the FX-9590, although having access to 8 threads on the FX-8000/9000 series is becoming more important for tasks like compression, multi-threaded web browsing and media creation.
AMD’s ideal scenario is a gamer using a combination of an FX-8370E ($200) with, for example, an MSI 970 Gaming motherboard ($90) and an R9 285 GPU ($250). Altogether this would cost around $540 for the start of an 8-thread system. This will do fine in gaming at 1080p, and the parallel to draw is that this performs the same as an FX-8150, but at lower power. It is a shame that the FX-8150 came out in October 2011, and nearly three years later we are saving only 30 watts of TDP (24%) and $45 on release price difference (18%) for the same performance on what should be the flagship line for a major x86 manufacturer.
At the end of the day, AMD needs to upgrade the architecture (and the chipset). At some point the architectures of the FX and APU line either need to diverge their separate ways, or there needs to be a hard earned reconciliation attempt to find a node and a manufacturing process suitable for both low power graphics cores and high frequency processor cores. We know about AMD's plans for 2016, dealing with ARM and x86, and the announcements on K12 so far point to AMD targeting servers, embedded markets and ultra low power client devices. Here's hoping desktop side gets a good boost.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
107 Comments
View All Comments
Vayra - Saturday, September 13, 2014 - link
It is not just Intel's fault though. AMD's marketing and timing is notoriously bad and has been for a long time. And they still keep fucking it up. Remember Mantle? Any other company would have been cashing in on that performance advantage, bigtime, even if it was only a couple percent. The only things that help AMD sales are factors beyond their control such as the sales bump on their GPU's when Bitcoin mining became popular.SunLord - Wednesday, September 3, 2014 - link
I doubt will see anything worthwhile from AMD let alone something that touches i7 until K12 ships. I can see them refreshing the FX chips next year using steamroller or a follow on core namely one that hopefully involves mostly 65W processors with 95w being the tdphescominsoon - Friday, October 17, 2014 - link
AMD isn't going to be able to get even with Intel(much less get ahead of them) until they move away form this two alu and 1 fpu per module garbage. The first gen Athlon has Intel running scared. All AMD can do now is compete on price..and they aren't doing that very well either. AMD is now facing what Intel was facing during the P-4 days. Hotter cpus that don't perform many things as well as the competition. AMD is a solid 2 generations behind in nearly all areas right now and with this current design they won't catch up.bebimbap - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
searching on the net it seems the 8370 and the 8370e both OC the same. without the power limits it seems 4.7-5.0ghz for 1.45v is average for this cpu. so expect about a 20-25% OCability if your motherboard can supply enough powerif power/temps are not an issue one site even suggested the 8350 the better value buy.
though from the data it seems at the same voltage and same MHz the 8370e is much lower in temps compared to the 8350. could just be good chip lotto.
Sigh, i miss the old thoroughbred days.
Knowname - Monday, September 15, 2014 - link
my FM2 A10-7850 is twice as fast as my old Phenom x3 and it didn't cost much to upgrade even if it meant a whole new mobo. I'd no doubt go this route over an incremental upgrade using the old vishera design. My old Phenom x3 was AM2+ though, might want to double check your motherboard, if it IS just AM2+ you may have no choice! But have no fear, it is quite a bit snappier if you just go with the AMD APU. In fact if your uninterested in Mantle I'd just go with an old Trinity/ Richland design!Scionero - Saturday, December 27, 2014 - link
I know this is an old discussion but recent prices make this situation different. An Intel I5-4690k will almost always beat out an AMD 8370E, for example. But the AMD will be about 80% as powerful as the I5 at 60% of the price. If you need every last bit of processing power then go for the Intel CPU's, but for me the AMD is the clear winner for everyday tasks and gaming.blackmagnum - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
Does this AMD chip have anything to do with this?: August 29th, The Haswell-E Launch.boot318 - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
AMD doesn't even belong in the same sentence/paragraph/write-up/world/etc with that processor line. No, to answer your question. AMD is improving the power consumption of CPUs they already have out (3 years old now). Timing is just an coincidence with Intel's new Haswell-E launch.just4U - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
Maybe.. but AMD gets a lot of criticism for it's power hungry processors so it's nice to see this get bumped down to 95watts. Intel's new line has 125watt cpu's which pretty much got a free pass in reviews. I found that odd.. especially with my 4790K coming in at 88watts.TiGr1982 - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
I just bought and installed 4790K in my own Z87 desktop. The thing is that these 88 W in case of Intel are a typical, but not a very peak CPU wattage; e.g., my 4790K at 4.4 GHz on all the cores at 1.225 V consumes around 115 W in CPU-heavy tasks like Prime95 AVX 8 threads.So, take these 88 W "with a grain of salt".